On a recent weekday, eight trucks pulled in over a two-hour period and separately negotiated with about 10 workers at a time. The bidding started at $12 an hour. But because there were more laborers than employers, the price frequently fell to as little as $5 per hour, significantly lower than the state’s mandated $8.75 minimum hourly wage and Prince George’s County’s minimum wage of $10.75 an hour. Although several workers cut deals at that low rate, Jose, a construction worker who moved to the U.S. from Guatemala 21 years ago, held out for higher pay — a decision that cost him a job at the time.
Even though Jose sometimes works for less than the $16 an hour he thinks he should be earning, he won’t bid himself down as low as the other workers. Day laborers make so little, he said, that they “have to work sometimes day and sometimes day and nights.” (Capital News Service is withholding the last names of day workers to protect them from possible retaliatory actions from employers.)
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6 comments:
Minimum wage is for LEGAL citizens. You don't have any rights to work at all here if you are here illegally, so be glad you are getting anything and not deported!
And just show much do these "employees" pay in withholding for Social Security, Medicare, state tax and federal tax?
8:03 AM are you really that stupid? The answer is obvious.
I think 8:03's question was on of those rhetorical thingamabobs, where you ask a question you already know the answer to to get people to talk about it.
Same goes for the people hiring them that are not paying the employer's share of SS,UC and WC.
A few undercover officers acting as day laborers who would then arrest the contractors for illegal hiring and pay practices would throw a wrench into the works in no time.
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